


Everyone I know, Goes away in the end

by JustWaitAndSee



Series: My Empire of Dirt [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16015886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustWaitAndSee/pseuds/JustWaitAndSee
Summary: You got a million problems ahead of you, you better forget about the million that are already behind.





	Everyone I know, Goes away in the end

The huff sounds that much angrier with the mechanical edge wound into it. Genji gets out of the passenger seat and slams the door behind him. He opens the back, metal fist clutching the black fabric of his duffle, and says, “You better be back.” 

Jesse flinches as the force of the door rattles the Jeep for the second time. He watches for a few moments as the cyborg walks over to the third safehouse that they had been sent to in just as many weeks. Playing dumb and trying to dodge the UN Council on Gabe’s orders has worn the thin shreds of both of their patience down to nothing. 

Genji had already been trying to convince him it was time to disappear into the night, before they ended up in jail for the shit Gabe told them to do. Of course, every sense that he has in him is telling him that Genji is right. That his time at Overwatch is over. That it’s time to get out while the getting is good, but he has to check. 

He has to make sure that this is the end of the life he made. 

Jesse just needs to- wants to know there’s no possibility that he can fix everything. 

And if it was all going to hell, the desert would tell him which direction he and Genji should start running towards. 

The itch beneath his skin had been irritating in Europe, but now on American soil, just north of the Chihuahuan, it was growing painful. 

He can feel the desert in his bones. The grit against his soul. The heat burning a sun in his eyes. 

So, he goes. 

Following the noon time sun in the southern sky. 

And he keeps going, when the service on his satellite phone winks out, when the radio cuts, when the Jeep splutters to a halt with half a tank of gas and too nice of an underbelly to give in to maintenance issues- 

-he gets out and walks. 

When the sand starts to pick up around him and the wind pricks at his skin, he holds his hat against his skull and walks straight in. 

_He’s standing next to a bomb._

_Jack and Gabe are arguing and their voices echo around him. They are standing on air, floating above him even though he knows there should be a slab of concrete at their feet._

_He’s standing next to a bomb and then he’s not._

_Gabe is dragging Jack along. His foot dissolving into black spray and he trips forward. Jack with his hands bloody from covering his eyes manages to catch at the wall. He hisses as he hauls Gabe straight and Jesse sees his hand is gripping a jagged metal panel._

_He sees Jack- eyes pale and Mercy at his bedside._

_He sees Gabe- dissolving and materializing and Moira grinning._

Jesse finds himself wandering towards the car before he is fully aware. He’s not sure if he walked all night or passed out in a face full of sand, but his beard itches and he is going to make sure to hug Genji before he showers so he can make the ninja experience his full stink. 

He’s probably 50 miles outside of civilization and through one of his extra tanks of gas when the service on his phone connects. With nothing for miles, he looks down at it as messages being to scroll in. 

At first, it’s a few voicemails from Genji. 

Then it’s more. 

The vibrations being to make his hand tingle as notification after notification come through. Jesse looks in confusion as each begins to list the messages as nine months, ten months, eleven months. 

He flicks open the lock, scrolls past the voicemails from Gabe, and hits the oldest message from Genji. 

“Cowboy, you said four days at most. Where the fuck are you?” 

That wasn’t too bad, maybe he had been in the sand just bit longer than he thought. He hit the next, “Seriously, where are you? I can’t keep stalling with Reyes.” 

Jesse grimaces, but his stomach start to feel hollow as the next message plays, “You better not have left me here to deal with Reyes, you piece of shit. You better be dead in that desert.” 

“I can’t believe you. I should have known would do this to me, you motherfucking jackass!” Genji’s voice has turned into a desperate kind of rage. 

The last voicemail is barely a whisper, “Jesse, why didn’t you take me with you?”

The techs must have hacked his phone or something. This was just a ridiculous prank they did with Genji. 

It just had to be a joke. 

With the dread in his stomach growing into a lead ball, he hits the call back button for Genji’s number. 

It rings twice before Jesse hears, “Who is this?” 

“Genji?” 

“McCree?”

He tries to laugh off what he heard as he responds, “Genji, the voicemails aren’t funny. I’m just getting out of the desert. I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” 

A long silence follows before he hears an angry huff and Genji snarls, “Are you fucking with me? You think I’m going to believe that you were wondering around the desert for a year?” 

“Genji, I couldn’t have been gone more than a few days. What’re you talking about?” As he says the words, he can tell they don’t sit quite right on his tongue. 

“Okay, we’ll play this game.” Jesse hears him hiss into the phone. “You’ve been gone almost a year, you piece of shit.” 

“Excuse me,” Jesse drawls, like the hand holding the phone to his ear isn’t shaking. “Genji, this joke isn’t funny.” 

“Good, cause this bullshit you’re trying to sell, isn’t funny to me.” 

He pulls his phone away from his ear and looks at the notifications still scrolling in on the screen. He watches as a news application spits out an article notification from seven months ago, _Explosion at Overwatch Swiss Headquarters Kills War Heroes Morrison and Reyes_.

As he reads, the feeling in his stomach has traveled into his throat. He hits the brake on the car and tries to choke around the lump in his throat. 

There was no saving anyone. They were already gone. 

He brings the phone back to his ear as he hears Genji yelling his name. 

“It’s over.” 

“McCree…” He sounds confused. 

He curls his head on to the top of the steering wheel. His voice wavers as he says, “I just- there’s an article on my phone. They’re-it’s all gone.” 

“Holy fuck, you really were in that desert the entire time.” 

“Gen- what the fuck?” He asks because what else can he ask. 

“Shit, Jesse, I’m sorry- Wait! Fuck, you’re using an Overwatch phone!” 

“Yeah, and?”

“Jesse, they put you on desertion charges before everything was disbanded and put some big money on your head. You need to ditch the phone and anything else you’ve got. There’s no way someone isn’t tracking it.” 

“Oh, shit,” As he registers what’s been said, he pulls himself back up straight and stops his foot on the gas. 

“I’ve still got this number for emergencies. Call me when you have gotten rid of any tails. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.” 

His mind has clicked back into survival mode and he knows he needs to get off the phone, so he rushes to say, “Genji, I promise I’m telling you the truth.” 

“Then we won’t have a problem. See you on the flip side, Cowboy.”

“See ya, Green Ranger,” He stamps his thumb on the end button, getting a good glance at the number to stick in his mind. He takes a quick look around the car, rolls down the window, and chucks the phone straight out. He pulls his knife off his belt and slides it straight home into the radio that has just started to splutter out static-filled tunes. 

As he pulls the blade back out, he glances at the sparking wires as the transmitter dies and thinks about how many times Gabe did that in front of him when he was particularly irritated with Jack and couldn’t be bothered to check in with the Overwatch controllers. 

Gabe who was dead. 

Except Jesse's memory from the desert said he wasn’t. 

Gabe who's last words to him he threw out of the window to be buried in the desert. The phone that had every picture he had taken during his thirteen years at Overwatch. Every way to contact any sort of help from his friends. 

He thinks about turning around, but a voice that he hasn’t heard in decades echoes through his head, _You got a million problems ahead of you, you better forget about the million that are already behind._

He wrinkles his nose, clenches his jaw, and hits the pedal harder. He’s hoping that no one will be waiting in the small town that borders this part of the desert, but doesn’t get his hopes up. He checks the gas and knows if he does it right he should be able to blow past the first town and drop the Jeep at the rail station. 

Jesse throws his hand out grasping at his bag in the passenger seat. He rummages through before he finally grabs at his wallet. With the window still open, he flicks out each credit card and hesitates for a second before throwing his license as well. There’s no way all of his accounts have not been frozen and ready to track for any activity or that his license number won’t signal the authorities. 

He continues to dig through the bag. Mentally he tallies the supplies he has within it and the boxes of ammo he can fit into it from the trunk. Finally, his fingers hit a thin booklet from where it’s hidden in the seams. 

He had forgotten that he had sown it in there. Pulling the duffle into his lap, with one hand, he takes his knife and slashes into the fabric. Once the leather hits his hand, he flips through the passport with his thumb and mentally counts the ID, birth certificate, and social security card tucked into the pages careful not to let them slip. 

He thinks about every penny he worked for sitting in a frozen bank account, he thinks about Genji just out of reach, he thinks about Gabe’s last words to him unheard-lost to the sand. He thinks about how he’s not the starving kid Gabe found just a few dozen miles away from this stretch of wide open nothing, though he can’t help but feel like he is with a baby-faced version of himself staring back from the blue paper next to the name _Joel Morricone Jr_. 

He kisses his teeth, tucks the documents into the inner breast pocket of his jacket, and focuses on the road ahead. 

His grip on the steering wheel tightens and the worst voice in the world rumbles through his head, _Sometimes, Junior, the dirt is all you got._

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me at iwillwaitandsee.tumblr.com


End file.
